orchid has a limp shrivelling leaf what to do? pic inside.

[Myst]

hello everyone!
i purchased this orchid at a grocery store.... i do not know what kind of orchid it is. I've had it for about a year.
It seemed to be doing very well, getting lots of new leaves and the stems sprouting new leaves too... then i noticed one of the bottom leaves started wilting, getting shriveled and limp. So i re potted but the leaf seems to be the same or getting worse also another bottom leaf seems to be doing the same thing.
I don't know whats going on?

Any help, ideas, suggestions please?

[Junebug]

This might be due to natural age progression. You have a Phalaenopsis and sometimes they loose a leaf or two. You also have a keiki (baby plant) growing on one flower stem and possibly another starting from the other stem. I can't tell for sure from the photo about the second one. It got cut off in the pic. Keiki formation could be sapping some of the energy from the mother plant and causing leaf loss.

[Myst]

yes you are correct i do have in fact 2 keiki's (baby plants) growing from the stems... i'm happy that it might just be aging and not disease of some sort.

thank you for your response and thanks for the proper terminology of the baby plants.
you guys must get tired of all these questions...but with that said i have a few more!

So, now what is the proper procedure for these aging leaves? Do I cut them off? or just let them wilt away naturally?
I just have no idea duh!

[Pilot]

Let the leaves yellow and fall off naturally. If you cut or tug the leaves off you risk infection of the plant. In my short experience, when a phal loses a leaf, it'll yellow seemingly over night and will fall away with a gentle push.

[Bird Song Farm]

Let me jump in here if I may. What did you use for potting media when you re-potted?

Al

[RosieC]

What were the roots like when you repotted (how many and were they firm)? Also like Al asked, what was it repotted in?

You haven't said if you had to removed any rotten roots when you repotted, but if you did then it is possible the plant just can't support all the leaves it has on the smaller number of roots.

One of mine which lost a lot of roots to root rot carried on loosing leaves for a while. Then it seemed to reach a point where the number of roots was sufficient to support the number of leaves and it stopped loosing them. Since then it has grown new roots and is also growing a new leaf just now.

[Myst]

i didn't notice any rotting roots when i re potted it although i didn't really know to look for any.
there is one nice big new root growing out....

i re potted in the wood chips.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

That pot is gigantic. Are there really that many roots on the plant? If not, down pot.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I don't believe this is natural. I believe it's a result of massive root loss.

Can you pull the plant out and show us a pic of the roots?

[RosieC]

I hadn't noticed the pot originally. King is right it is massive.

A plant with enough roots for that pot would likely by easily able to support those leaves and not need to loose old ones.

I would guess that the large amount of bark in that pot is not drying out quickly enough which could be leading to root rot.

I would advise taking another look at the roots and show us a shot of them if you can.